Current Grads Will Retire 12 Years Late

Thanks to student debt, study predicts new median retirement age of 73
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 24, 2013 11:33 AM CDT
Current Grads Will Retire 12 Years Late
   (Shutterstock)

Your student loans won't just cost you money, they'll cost you years of labor. A new analysis from Nerd Wallet estimates that today's graduates won't be able to retire until they're 73, a full 12 years later than the current average retirement age of 61, thanks mostly to their debt loads. The median student graduates with $23,300 in debt, and will devote about 7% of their income to repaying it for the first 10 years of their career. "This prevents any meaningful contributions toward retirement," the site reasons.

That means that, when you factor in the opportunity cost of not having that savings growing and making money, that $23,300 will wind up costing $115,096 in the long run. Of course, even these bleak numbers probably sound good to some Americans; a new Wells Fargo survey of middle-class workers aged 25 to 75 found that 34% planned to work until at least their 80th birthday, and 37% don't expect to retire at all, CNN Money reports. (More retirement stories.)

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